On 'On Movement and Memory'

by Ruth Barker, 5 Feb 2010

Hello,

so on Wednesday I went to this talk at the Mitchell, organised by Glasgow Sculpture Studios as part of Jimmie Durham’s residency there. Speaker Jonathan Bonfiglio’s presentation was billed as “On Movement (and Memory) is a wide-ranging talk that encompasses all aspects of how we move and how that helps us to create memories, in an ultimately futile attempt to immortalise ourselves. These days, perhaps we have come to regard ourselves as Gods, and death as beneath us. Was it always thus?” I have to say I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, Bonfiglio seemed like a good guy as well as being obviously intelligent. But the talk itself was frustrating on a number of levels.

Firstly the room set-up was awkward and un-ergonomic. The chairs for the audience were arranged in two facing rows with a gap in the middle, almost like being on the tube – or maybe also a bit like how the two main parties sit in the House of Commons (although the gap was narrower and the rows were proportionately much longer and thinner, and only two chairs deep). Bonfiglio sat behind a desk placed at the far end – the equivalent of the Speaker’s position (or the door into the next tube carriage. Not sure how long I can keep up these two parallel similies, but I’ll do my best). This meant that not only were you distracted by trying not to make eye contact with people sitting opposite you (very like being on the tube, this. I’ve never been to the H of C’s so couldn’t comment) but also it was impossible for many in the audience, including me, to actually see the speaker and I couldn’t hear him, either! This last was partly because of a bad mic I think as the sound was very muffled, but also because he spoke very quickly and – I felt at least – kind of unclearly. This may just have been me though, as I am a bit hard of hearing.

What I did hear though, I’m afraid didn’t inspire. It felt like a very surface-skimming series of anecdotes, which weren’t either incisive or interrogatory, or esoteric and tangential. Perhaps Bonfiglio misjudged his audience? There were some mighty brains there (I don’t count myself in that by the way) and he could have done with picking up the slack a little. I was left with a feeling as if I’d just read a column in the lifestyle section of the Guardian. It was nice, but I just couldn’t figure out where it was going. Cultural theory it wasn’t.

So I want to finish with an off-the-top-of-my-head list of some Memory and Movement related things I would like to listen to a talk about. If anyone wishes to string together into a lecture for me, let me know!

- Memorials (to be fair Bonfiglio did touch on this, and even began to introduce a few ideas relating place to memory, but he didn’t illuminate the subject).

- The classical Method of Loci (a mnemonic system of memorised spatial relationships that establish, order and recollect stored memories).

- Native American narratological/spatial story structures (in which landscapes are mapped and routes recalled through storytelling).

- The memory theatre of Giulio Camillo (read the wonderful book by Frances A Yates – The Art of Memory) FAY rocks.

- I guess stuff by Miwon Kwon on Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, or even Simon Schama’s canonical Landscape and Memory)

There’s just so much stuff out there – it’s such a vast field which, even though it’s been well picked over by some really interesting theorists, surely has much more still to give us. A few anecdotes aren’t going to contribute much to that though. No matter how much of a nice guy he seems.

Sorry to bang on about it. Usually I prefer to enthuse rather that critique. If it’s any consolation to Mr Bonfiglio and the GSS team, this post reflects my disappointment – a fact which reminds me that my expectations were high.

Ah well, better luck next time. And this is just my personal view after all. If you were there and disagreed, do let me know. Maybe you’ll change my mind.

more later,
R